Naturally, having a strong sales force is vital to your company’s success. Your sales people are representing your brand and bringing in the revenue you need to stay afloat and grow into the future. When you have the right hiring process in place and follow it every time you need new blood at your sale organization, you can find and hire top sales people and reap the rewards. You should have a strict process in place—not just wing it and hope for the best. When you hire the wrong sales reps, you’re doing your company a disservice—every part of your business will suffer. That’s why it’s so important to know how to hire top sales people.

Here are some tips you should consider the next time you’re looking to hire top sales people for your organization.

Replicate What Works

One of the easiest ways to hire top sales people is to analyze the traits that your best sales reps have, see what they have in common, create metrics based on these commonalities, and look for them in your candidate pool. These traits may be innate or they may be learned skills or specific experience. You already have the answer to what you’re looking for—you’ve hired these top reps before—now it’s just time to replicate it so you can keep hiring only the best. To hire top sales people, you need to be purposeful and intentional in what you’re searching for.

Avoid What Doesn’t Work

You did hire top sales people in your past—but chances are you’ve hired some flops, too. Just like you should be looking at your past successes, you should be looking at your hiring mistakes, too. Be honest with yourself about the reps you’ve hired in the past that didn’t work out, and try to figure out what they have in common—or what common mistake you keep making—so you can see what doesn’t work in your organization. Don’t make the same mistakes again; learn from them.

Don’t Settle

You’re bound to be disappointed when you settle for a candidate simply because you’ve run out of options. This isn’t how you build a strong sales team. You keep looking until you find that perfect candidate that you absolutely can’t live without—the candidate who raises the bar.

Hire for Fit

You might be able to hire top sales people but they won’t last if they’re not ultimately the right fit for your organization. And hiring a candidate who’s just going to leave in a few weeks or months is a waste of time, money, and resources. So when you’re hiring, look for fit. Your company has a unique voice, culture, and way of doing things. It has specific business standards, values, and goals. Find the candidate that is on the same page when it comes to your company culture, and you’ll find yourself a new employee for the long run.

Be a Company Top Sales People Want to Work For

The best way to hire top sales people is to be the type of company that they are attracted to. When your company is known as an industry leader and is reputable as a great place to work, top sales people will come to you in search for a job. When you have a strong company purpose, offer chances for professional growth, pay well, challenge your employees, and respect everyone around you, you will start to be known as the company to work for.

Hiring the best doesn’t have to be impossible. And your hiring process shouldn’t be based on a hit-or-miss approach. You can hire top sales people when you replicate what has worked in the past, avoid making the same mistakes, don’t settle for mediocre candidates, hire for fit, and become a company that the top reps want to work for.